Memo to Democrats: No more purity tests. (I’m looking at you, Chris Rabb.)
The state representative, a candidate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, is right that ideological litmus checks are misguided. So why does he have his own about using the word “genocide”?
State Rep. Chris Rabb says there shouldn’t be a "purity test" about appearing with controversial podcasters like Hasan Piker, and I agree with him. When we limit who can say what — and to whom — everybody loses.
So why does Rabb want to create his own purity test around charges of genocide against Israel?
That’s been Rabb’s go-to move in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans in Pennsylvania’s Third Congressional District. “If you can’t name the beast, you can’t kill it,” Rabb said last week, blasting his opponents for refusing to use the word genocide to describe Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
In September, a United Nations panel found that Israel was “responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” where at least 70,000 people have been killed since October 2023. But critics have taken issue with the claim, because — under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — the term applies only when there is a deliberate intent to eliminate a people.
» READ MORE: How the Middle East and the word 'genocide' became the defining issue of the Philly congressional race
In 1995, for example, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić issued a directive calling for the murder of Muslims in Serbia. And in 1942, the Nazis proclaimed the elimination of Jews as the "Final Solution."
That’s why the Holocaust constituted a genocide and the Allied firebombing of Germany in World War II did not. German right-wing activists have labeled the 1945 destruction of Dresden the "Bombenholocaust," because 25,000 people were killed there. But there’s no evidence — none — that the Allies were attempting to eliminate the German people, like the Nazis sought to destroy the Jews.
Some observers point to demands by several Israeli ministers for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza as proof of Israel’s genocidal intent. That would constitute ethnic cleansing, and it would most likely be a war crime as well. But would it be genocide? Surely informed people can disagree about that.
But not in certain Democratic precincts, where any kind of dissent on the matter has been placed out of bounds. Witness the fate of California State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional seat in San Francisco. At a debate in January, Wiener was booed after he refused to call the events in Gaza a genocide. A few days later, he posted a message saying he had changed his mind and would now use the word.
That wasn’t enough for his opponents, who blasted Wiener for tacking with the political winds. “Genocide shouldn’t be something you say yes or no based on the reporter you are talking to or how your poll numbers look,” declared Saikat Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The issue, he added, is about “moral clarity.”
No, it isn’t. It’s about whether Democrats can allow for different perspectives on a complicated question, instead of requiring a single answer.
Here we should note that some Jewish voices don’t want that debate, either. They have labeled the genocide charge "blood libel," as if everyone leveling it is a chronic antisemite. That creates a different kind of purity test: you need to “stand with Israel,” no matter what it does. Any questions?
None of this will get us any closer to solving the mess in the Middle East, of course. Nor will it help the Democrats, who have an ugly habit of eating their own. The more we police each other’s language, the worse our chances at the polls.
It’s not about moral clarity. It’s about whether Democrats can allow for different perspectives on a complicated question, instead of requiring a single answer.
Put simply, voters don’t like our incessant virtue-signaling. While we argue about what words to use, they wonder how they’ll put food on the table.
That brings us back to Rabb, who insists we use the right words — his words — about Israel and genocide. But he also staged a livestream discussion with Piker, the podcaster who has compared Zionists to Nazis and said he prefers Hamas to Israel.
Does that mean Rabb should be canceled, along with anyone else who speaks with Piker? Of course not. Being a guest on Piker’s podcast doesn’t mean Rabb agrees with everything Piker says, any more than I endorsed all of Joe Rogan’s views when I decided to appear on his show.
“What is the purity test, and who sets it?” Chris Rabb asked last week, defending his decision to appear with Piker. Why is it OK to talk with Fox News or Bill Maher, Rabb said, but not with Hasan Piker?
That’s the right question, and Rabb gave the correct answer: it should be up to each of us. I just wish Rabb and other Democrats would demonstrate the same tolerance about the words we choose, instead of insisting that everyone echo their own.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools.”
